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For those of us who are maybe a little tired of rainbows, we now have 'smart LEDs' in monochrome! Make your own smart Cool WhiteLED arrangement with the same integrated LED dr that is used in our new fancy DotStar strips. Unlit, the color resembles a yellow Starburst. Lit up these are insanely bright (like ow my eye hurts) and can be controlled with 24 bit high-frequency PWM. The phosphor helps diffuse the 3 white dies inside together for a very bright but consistant light, compared to what you get by trying to mix RGB to make white (which never quite looks right)

They're also a great upgrade for people who have loved and used NeoPixels for a few years but want to use the same kind of technology for monochromatic lighting. DotStar LEDs use generic 2-wire SPI, so you can push data much faster than with the NeoPixel 800 KHz protocol and there's no specific timing required. They also have much higher PWM refresh rates, so you can do Persistence-of-Vision (POV) and have less flickering, particularly at low brightness levels.

Like NeoPixels, DotStar LEDs are 5050-sized LEDs with an embedded microcontroller inside the LED. You can set the brightness of each of 3 individual cool white dies epoxied into the case. Each LED acts like a shift register, reading incoming data on the input pins, and then shifting the previous data out on the output pin. By sending a long string of data, you can control an infinite number of LEDs, just tack on more or disconnect unwanted LEDs at the end. The PWM is built into each LED-chip so once you set the brightness you can stop talking to the strip and it will continue to PWM all the LEDs for you.

Another nice thing about DotStars is their high PWM rate. You only have to set the brightness data for each pixel LED once, and then the LED+built-in-chip will handle the PWMing. On NeoPixels, this PWM rate happens 400 Hz, which works well but is noticably at lower brightnesses and if the strip is moving in any way. DotStars have a 20 KHz PWM rate, so even when moving the LED around, you won't see the pixelation, the blending is very smooth.